Yet to be Revealed

Elvira and I often sat in the courtyard in the early evenings as the children played. As we chatted one evening in mid-July, to my surprise, she asked me to be present when her new baby arrived.

Yes, I was a RN trained in the USA and I had observed births in a sterile delivery room at Abbott Hospital in Minneapolis. But then I was a student nurse and there was always an obstetrician in charge. And all those deliveries required medication, anesthesia, and strict protocols. And here was Elvira confidently preparing to give birth at home! I was incredulous, but I agreed to be there when her baby arrived.

At dawn on July 30, 1963, I was suddenly awakened when señora Elena tapped on my door: “Elvira is in labor and the ‘partera’ is on her way!”

I dressed and dashed across the patio. As I entered the bedroom, I quickly observed that the midwife, a soft-spoken older woman named Aurora, had already arrived. She calmly reassured Elvira that her labor was progressing “muy bien!”… Within a little more than an hour, the baby’s head was crowning and in what seemed almost instantaneous, a robust baby boy with dark wavy hair was born. (That baby, Jorge, is now 60 years of age!)pp. 22–23